POINT BLANK: Is a young black man...

POINT BLANK: Is a young black man brandishing a gun on an album cover less inflammatory than that same picture on a movie ad?

The brain trust behind the marketing of “Juice” must think so.

The original print ad and posters for Paramount’s “Juice,” a violent movie about four young black men in Harlem, shows one of the heroes with a gun in his hand. With theater operators fearing a repeat of the gang-related violence at showings of previous inner-city dramas such as “New Jack City” and “Boyz N the Hood,” Paramount airbrushed out the firearm. But on the cover of the soundtrack album, released by MCA Records, the gun has not been blown away.

According to a spokeswoman at MCA, the idea of altering the picture was never discussed. The soundtrack artwork was finished and ready to go long before the movie company altered the ad. So far, the spokeswoman said, there have been no complaints from either fans or record retailers about the gun.

And in terms of marketing, the gun seems to make little difference: Both the film and the rap-oriented album, which features performances by Naughty by Nature, Erik B. & Rakim, Big Daddy Kane and Cypress Hill, are off to good box-office and cash-register starts.